SARANAC LAKE – The North Country lost one of its most original voices Saturday when Maurice Kenny, a celebrated Mohawk author, died at the age of 86 at Adirondack Medical Center here.

“There is nobody else like him,” said Penelope Kelsey, a professor at the Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder, who edited “Maurice Kenny: Celebrations of a Mohawk Writer.” “(He was) definitely a singular person.”

Kenny was internationally recognized for his poetry and prose. In 2000, he received the Elder Recognition Award from the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers. His book, “The Mama Poems,” won the American Book Award in 1984. Both “Blackrobe: Isaac Jogues, B. March 11, 1607, D. October 18, 1646,” and “Between Two Rivers” were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and “On Second Thought” was a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award in fiction in 1996. He received an honorary doctorate from St. Lawrence University in 1995 and was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame in 2014.

Kenny was the co-editor of the literary review magazine Contact/II as well as the editor and publisher of Strawberry Press. Over the years, he taught at the University of Oklahoma at Norman, the University of Victoria in British Columbia, SUNY Potsdam, Paul Smith’s College and North Country Community College, where he served as poet-in-residence. He was a member of the Academy of American Poets.

Kenny was born in Watertown on Aug. 16, 1929, to Andrew and Doris Herrick Kenny. Kelsey said his father was responsible for instilling in him the value of hard work, which influenced his prolific output as a writer.

“His father was a businessman, and I think that really imprinted on Maurice the need to achieve,” Kelsey said. “That’s what Maurice brought to the poetry world.”

Kenny received his education from Butler University, St. Lawrence University and New York University, where he studied with the eminent American poet Louise Bogan. He traveled extensively and lived in New York City, Chicago, Mexico and the Virgin Islands before returning home to the North Country. He spent his final years in Saranac Lake, where he often gave readings of his work.

Although Kenny was celebrated for his work, Kelsey said he remained refreshingly down-to-earth.

“(He) was such a tremendously warm and welcoming person,” she said. “He was just so incredibly generous, and I know that there are many up-and-coming writers of color whose work he helped promote through the Contact/II press.

“He really welcomed people into the profession.”

Kenny is perhaps best known for “Tekonwatonti / Molly Brant (1735-1795: Poems of War),” a book of narrative poems that trace the life of Mohawk woman Molly Brant, the wife of Sir William Johnson and the sister of Chief Joseph Brant.

“It’s phenomenal for its achievement and the way it tells the story of a Mohawk woman during the Revolutionary War and what that really looked like,” Kelsey said.

Kirk Peterson of Lake Clear, a retired Paul Smith’s College professor who briefly worked with Kenny at the school, agreed.

“He did some innovative stuff in terms of his writing about Molly Brant,” he said. “It was pretty insightful.”

Over the decades, Kenny helped shape many young minds and was quick to lend a hand to other writers and educators.

“When I came to my first tenure line job at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology), I called him up because I was thinking about writing on his work, and was just blown away by how incredibly gracious and welcoming he was,” Kelsey said. “He invited me and my husband up to visit with him at his home, and that was just sort of the beginning of a really rich friendship.

“He was really dedicated to his students in a way that only the very best people are, would do anything to help advance their work. … If you called him up with a question about X, Y, or Z writer that he knew, he would happily share the information that he had.”

“Maurice Kenny is another example of the fine adjunct faculty that have been here at the college and made a significant contribution to our students,” NCCC President Steve Tyrell said. “He was a fantastic professor here as an adjunct. Over the years, as we all know, he made major literary contributions regarding his deep, profound love for the Adirondack Park. We will all miss him dearly, and our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends. He had a real positive impact on the college and on our students here as an adjunct, and many people here today are discussing how he will be fondly remembered.”

“The SUNY Potsdam community is mourning the loss of longtime faculty member and visionary Mohawk poet, Dr. Maurice Kenny,” SUNY Potsdam President Kristin Esterberg said via email. “His truly singular poetic voice resounds with many in the North Country and around the world – and will continue to inspire, long after his passing.”

Kelsey said the Newberry Library in Chicago, which she described as the premier library for Native American research in the United States, plans to collect Kenny’s papers.

“He’s definitely considered to be among the greatest of his generation,” she said. “I already know that there are many native writers, especially northeastern writers, for whom his work has been so inspiring because they have learned so much about craft from him. He used very seemingly simple but rich, imagistic poems.

“There is a lasting impact on the younger generation of younger poets that he knew and worked with, and I think that will continue.”

Kelsey also said Kenny’s status as a “queer-identified” poet, at a time when the LGBT community faced great discrimination, caused many to see him as a role model.

“I think that was really important,” she said. “He is a real role model, and what he offers in that regard was just irreplaceable.”

Although Kenny’s work will live on forever, Kelsey stressed that the world will sorely miss his presence.

“Maurice was just amazing,” she said. “He was one of those people who are just so full of life, very amazing and touching and profound, and it’s just impossible, on some level, to imagine that he is gone.

“Maurice was a gem.”